In the face of rising college costs and mounting student debt, more college students are joining an online dating site that bills itself as “the world’s largest Sugar Daddy website.” Student membership increased by more than 50 percent in 2012, Angela Jacob, a spokeswoman with the site said. That includes 57 female students from UC San Diego and 32 members from San Diego State University.

The site, SeekingArrangement.com, based in Las Vegas, pairs “sugar babies,” which include actors, models and students, with older benefactors. Its pitch is that as student debt keeps creeping upward, these “mutually beneficial arrangements” can give two parties what they each desire. One page shows the photo of a middle-aged man fanning $100 bills and leering into the camera. “I love beautiful young ladies, and I am not ready to commit. This website is the perfect dating website for me.”

Sign-ups from UCSD more than tripled from the year before, while SDSU’s membership more than doubled. Annual full-time in-state tuition at UCSD is $13,234 and $6,578 at SDSU.

The site’s college student members receive around $3,000 per month on average “to cover the cost of tuition, books and living expenses,” Jacob said.

Who am I to tell a naive young girl that the degree she'll pay for by sleeping with a dirty old man isn't a ticket to a dream job and a middle class life any more? She'll figure it out on her own eventually.